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The sacrament of Love
For Paul Evdokimov, the conjugal union of man and woman in marriage is an image of God in Trinity - a relationship of persons united in love, thus realizing their one nature. But, since the Fall, only Christ can truly reconcile man and woman and bring about the harmony of Eros and the person. The sacrament of marriage regulates the communion between man and wife in all its sacramental fullness. True love is fruitful, but this fruitfulness is not only expressed through children; in can also be manifested through hospitality, through service, and sometimes through a common creation. The Sacrament of Love is a unique reflection on marriage, as well as on monastic and non-monastic celibacy. It places the relationship of man and woman within the context of the most perfect relationship of the Trinitarian communion of the Divine Persons.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Paul Evdokimov
24 books29 followersPaul Nikolaevich Evdokimov (rus. Павел Николаевич Евдокимов) was a Russian and French theologian, writer, and professor of theology at St. Sergius Institute in Paris. He was an invited observer to the Second Vatican Council.
He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on August 2, 1901, the son of an army officer who was assassinated by one of his soldiers in 1905. He was educated in a military school and served in the cavalry. He began theological studies just prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Following the revolution, he and his family escaped from Crimea through Constantinople and settled in Paris circa 1923. Evdokimov continued his theological studies at St. Sergius Institute, studying with Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev. He was among the founding members of the Russian Christian Student Movement.
He married Natasha Brunel in 1927, who died of cancer during the latter part of World War II. In 1942, he completed his doctorate in philosophy at Aix-en-Provence.
During the War, Evdokimov worked with the French Resistance. In 1954, he married Tomoko Sakai, a daughter of a Japanese Diplomat.
He reposed in Meudon, France, on September 16, 1970.
He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on August 2, 1901, the son of an army officer who was assassinated by one of his soldiers in 1905. He was educated in a military school and served in the cavalry. He began theological studies just prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Following the revolution, he and his family escaped from Crimea through Constantinople and settled in Paris circa 1923. Evdokimov continued his theological studies at St. Sergius Institute, studying with Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev. He was among the founding members of the Russian Christian Student Movement.
He married Natasha Brunel in 1927, who died of cancer during the latter part of World War II. In 1942, he completed his doctorate in philosophy at Aix-en-Provence.
During the War, Evdokimov worked with the French Resistance. In 1954, he married Tomoko Sakai, a daughter of a Japanese Diplomat.
He reposed in Meudon, France, on September 16, 1970.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 18, 2021
,,Maternitatea este o formă particulară a chenozei feminine. Mama se dăruiește copilului său, moare parțial pentru el, urmând iubirii lui Dumnezeu care se smerește și pogoară, repetând într-un fel cuvântul Sf. Ioan Botezătorul: Acela trebuie să crească, iar eu să mă micșorez. Sacrificiul mamei îndură sabia de care vorbește Simeon. În această jertfire, fiecare mamă se apleacă asupra lui Hristos răstignit."
March 18, 2026
One of the best books I've read about marriage. Evdokimov convincingly shows that any attempt to reduce the mega mysterion of marriage to procreation fails. We share procreation with animals; there would be nothing specifically human or spiritual to marriage if it were reduced to that.
We can see in this book some reflections on women that will later blossom into Women and the Salvation of the World, which I'm now even more eager to delve into.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts:
The Biblical term Ezer Ke-negdo (Gn 2:18) means “a helper turned toward him” (the man). Looked at more inwardly, this means that woman is completely at ease within the limits of her being and develops it into a clear, limpid symphony. She fills the world with her being, with her radiant presence. Man, on the other hand, overreaches his being; more outside himself, his charism of expansion makes him look outward. He fills the world with his creative energies by asserting himself as master and lord. He accepts at his side the woman, his help. She is at once his betrothed, his wife, and his mother. “The glory of man,” according to St Paul (1 Co 11 :7), in her luminous purity, she is like a mirror that reflects the face of man, reveals man to himself and thereby betters him. Thus she helps man understand himself and realize the meaning of his own existence. She accomplishes this by deciphering his destiny, for it is through woman that man more easily becomes what he is. This is the entire dialectic of spiritual motherhood. The words of St Peter (1 Pt 3:4) are addressed to every woman and contain an entire gospel of the feminine; they define her essential charism accurately: to give birth to the hidden man of the heart—homo cordis absconditus. Man is more inclined to be interested in only his own cause; on the other hand, the maternal instinct of the woman, as at the wedding of Cana (Jn 2:1-10), immediately discovers the thirst of the spirit of men and finds the eucharistic spring to quench it. The relation so mysterious between mother and child causes woman—Eve, the source of life—to watch over every being, to protect life and the world. The question of knowing whether the woman will be wife, mother, or bride of Christ (sponsa Christi) is only secondary. Her charism of interiorized and universal “maternity” carries every woman toward the hungry and the needy and admirably defines the feminine essence: virgin or spouse, every woman is a mother for all eternity (in aeternum). The structure of her soul predisposes her “to protect” all that crosses her path, to discover in the strongest and most virile being a weak, defenseless child. If man is forever inclined to poeticize woman, if he remains an incurable romantic, woman is the only one to love man for what he is and as he is. A woman’s love is the most profound enigma, and man will never cease to be amazed at it. Helvetius defines masculine love very well: “to love is to need.” For which the feminine formula would be: “to love is to fulfill the need,” to go beyond and even to anticipate it. (pages 32-3)
An ancient liturgical text of dogmatic content (the Theotokion) defines the motherhood of the Virgin in the light of the paternity of God: “Without a father have you given birth to the Son, the One who was born without a mother before all ages.” The analogy is clearly described: the maternity of the Virgin presents itself as the human figure of the paternity of God. (34)
According to Maximus the Confessor, the mystic is the one in whom the birth of the Lord is manifested. And how telling it is that St Paul uses the image of motherhood when he wishes to express his spiritual fatherhood: “I must go through all the pain of childbirth.” (35)
The feminine operates on the level of an ontological structure: it is not a verb, it is being (esse), the creature’s womb. The Theotokos gives her entire being where the Logos comes to take His place; she carries Him and she reveals Him. The liturgy identifies the Virgin with the domain of the Wisdom of God. (40)
A completely new spirituality is asserting itself today, one that is searching for neither more nor less than a priestly vocation in conjugal love: The Nuptial Priesthood. (41)
Love alone bestows a spiritual meaning upon marriage, and justifies it by elevating it to perceive the countenance of the beloved in God, to the level of the one and only icon. (43)
It may be said that each faculty of the human spirit (intelligence, freedom, love, creation) reflects the image, which is essentially the complete human centered on the spiritual, whose distinctive characteristic it is to go beyond himself in order to cast himself into the infinity of God and to find there the alleviation of his nostalgia. Holiness is nothing but an unquenchable thirst, the intensity of the desire for God. St Gregory of Nyssa teaches that every limit contains in its essence a beyond, its own transcendence, and this is why the soul can rest only in the actual infinity of God.” (58)
Before the Fall, animal life was outside the spiritual being of man; opened and turned toward him, it was awaiting its proper spiritualization-humanization (Adam’s “naming” the beings and things). The fall of the sense faculties precipitated events, and animal life was added to the human being.” The Eastern Fathers specify that it is spiritual man—man in the image of God, the being supernaturally natural—who is primordial and normative, and that mere “natural” man was added to this ‘‘accidentally.” The animal-biological element seems alien to the true nature of man, owing to its being appropriated before its spiritualization, before man had achieved power and the mastery of the spiritual over the material. The error is the result of a precocious and untimely identification. Clement of Alexandria detects original sin in the fact that “the first man of our race did not bide his time, desired the favor of marriage before the proper hour, and fell into sin by not waiting for the time of God’s will. (59)
The anticontemplative tendency contrasts Eros to Agape” and confuses inwardness with being self-centered. For Gregory of Nyssa, however, Eros flowers into Agape and into love of neighbor: Eros is “the intensity of Agape.” “God is the Father of Agape and Eros.” The two are complementary: Eros, moved by the Spirit, goes out to meet divine Agape. (82)
In transcending the sensual, love gives an unsuspected depth to the flesh. Clearsighted and prophetic, it is above all revelation. It makes one view the soul of the beloved in terms of radiance, and attains the level of knowledge that belongs only to the one who loves. In Hebrew the verb yada means both to know and to marry; loving, therefore, indicates complete knowledge, ‘‘Adam knew Eve.” Behind all travesties, love contemplates the innocence that was at the beginning. Its miracle destroys remoteness, distance, solitude, and gives an inkling of what the mysterious unity of love can be, a heterogeneous identity of two subjects. (106)
In his book, The Jasmine of the Faithful of Love, the great Persian mystic Ruzbehan Bagli of Shiraz views lived human love as a necessary initiation into the love of God. This is not the monastic conversion of Eros, but its transfiguration. In every beloved there is an encounter with the one and only Beloved, just as in every divine name the totality of Names is found again, due to the sympathetic union (unio sympathetica). Beauty is seen as a manifestation of the sacred (Hierophany), an apparition of the divine (theophany), only if the love of God is lived in human love, the element to be transfigured and transmuted. Human love seems propaedeutic to divine love. (110)
The presence of God is no stranger to the attraction lovers feel for one another, and their encounter is never fortuitous. (111)
It is said that love is blind, and yet it makes one see. The revelation is transsubjective but not illusive, for it depends on the image of God. The iconographic concept acquaints and accustoms one to see the image of eternity. It is in this sense that St John Chrysostom affirms that “nuptial love is the strongest love’; like faith it is able to see what is hidden to others. (111-2)
However, this “birth into beauty” brings with it a purifying fire and imposes an asceticism. The banquet of love does not last. The face of the beloved is shown, only to disappear again. This is because it is not only given; it must also be created. (112)
The whole fascinating mystery of love lies in the spiritual conquest of the other, of the inaccessible. This makes of the beloved otherness the matter of the sacrament: the aim of love is that two become one (finis amoris ut duo unum fiant). A stranger becomes more intimate to me, more inward than my own soul. (115)
Clement of Alexandria has a far-reaching concept: “But who are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ in the midst of whom the Lord is? Does He not by the two mean husband and wife? He nonetheless propounds one condition: “The prize in the contest of men is shown by him who has trained himself by the discharge of the duties of marriage; by him, I say, who in the midst of his solicitude for his family shows himself inseparable from the love of God. (118)
The more the spouses are united in Christ the more their common cup, the measure of their life, is filled with the wine of Cana and becomes miraculous. (123)
The matter of the sacrament is not only a “visible sign,” but the natural substratum that is changed into the place where the energies of God are present. In the sacrament of marriage, the matter is the love of man and woman (125)
It is noteworthy that the Service contains no fear of the woman, no trace of suspicion or of contempt. The prayer for nuptial chastity is the opposite of every concept advancing “‘a remedy for concupiscence”; it asks for something entirely different, the miracle of the transfiguration of Eros. Carnal sin is not at all sin of the flesh, but sin of the spirit against the flesh, the profanation of the sacred and of the sanctity of the Incarnation. (155)
The inexhaustible richness of the texts invoked converges toward what is essential: the eucharistic nature of nuptial love. The Chaldean rite affirms this is a fortunate manner: “In his nuptial chamber, the spouse is like the tree of life in the Church. Its fruits are nourishing, its leaves bear healing power.” “The bride is like a cup of pure gold, overflowing with milk and sprinkled with drops of blood.” “May the Trinity abide forever in this nuptial chamber!” (157)
The Apostle Paul is deeply affected by the law of irrational resistance: “I do not understand what I do.” The conscience is hindered by the subconscious which never obeys direct orders or given and imposed imperatives. The imagination plays an important role here. It nourishes art, embodies an image in stone, color, sound. But art never creates a living object, as the myth of Galatea tells us. Likewise, abstract principles and a prescriptive morality are ineffective. Imagination and its Eros will always demand an incarnate image, a living icon, a saint. More than ever, an ascetic culture of the imagination is indispensable. A Dostoevsky, a Bernanos descend into the darkness, but their imagination is forever obedient to the image of Christ. An iconographic education acquaints one with true beauty, teaches the contemplation of mysteries. It is the soul that is the form of the body’s beauty, and in the beauty of the soul, it is the image of God that delights: us.” St John Climacus teaches the chastity of the imagination by describing the attitude of an ascetic who, on seeing the beauty of a naked woman, “thereupon glorified the Creator; and from that one look, he was moved to the love of God and to a fountain of tears. Such a person... has risen immortal before the general resurrection.” (172)
The present-day emancipations are superficial. They are made in view of an easy, conflict-free eroticism. The ease with which divorce is granted reduces marriage to very little, to a meaningless temporary mating or even to a business transaction or unavowed interests. (187)
Paul Claudel specifies the poetic function well: “You explain nothing, O poet, but through you all things become explainable.” It is the poetry of the Fathers of the Church that opens the aeonic depths and leads to the flame of things. The poetry of love triumphs over the day-to-day real, over. the ponderous seriousness of the theoreticians, over infernal ennui, over the prose of the unlivable “good sense.” It speaks the language of the “fools of God’”—the God-intoxicated—those who breathe the insufflations of the Spirit and who add fire to fire; likewise, the language of those who let their own death mature inside them like a fruit of the Resurrection, and finally of those whose human love leads to the love of God. “The love of God and the love of man are not two loves,” Maximus the Confessor states, “but two aspects of the same unifying love.” (191-2)
We can see in this book some reflections on women that will later blossom into Women and the Salvation of the World, which I'm now even more eager to delve into.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts:
The Biblical term Ezer Ke-negdo (Gn 2:18) means “a helper turned toward him” (the man). Looked at more inwardly, this means that woman is completely at ease within the limits of her being and develops it into a clear, limpid symphony. She fills the world with her being, with her radiant presence. Man, on the other hand, overreaches his being; more outside himself, his charism of expansion makes him look outward. He fills the world with his creative energies by asserting himself as master and lord. He accepts at his side the woman, his help. She is at once his betrothed, his wife, and his mother. “The glory of man,” according to St Paul (1 Co 11 :7), in her luminous purity, she is like a mirror that reflects the face of man, reveals man to himself and thereby betters him. Thus she helps man understand himself and realize the meaning of his own existence. She accomplishes this by deciphering his destiny, for it is through woman that man more easily becomes what he is. This is the entire dialectic of spiritual motherhood. The words of St Peter (1 Pt 3:4) are addressed to every woman and contain an entire gospel of the feminine; they define her essential charism accurately: to give birth to the hidden man of the heart—homo cordis absconditus. Man is more inclined to be interested in only his own cause; on the other hand, the maternal instinct of the woman, as at the wedding of Cana (Jn 2:1-10), immediately discovers the thirst of the spirit of men and finds the eucharistic spring to quench it. The relation so mysterious between mother and child causes woman—Eve, the source of life—to watch over every being, to protect life and the world. The question of knowing whether the woman will be wife, mother, or bride of Christ (sponsa Christi) is only secondary. Her charism of interiorized and universal “maternity” carries every woman toward the hungry and the needy and admirably defines the feminine essence: virgin or spouse, every woman is a mother for all eternity (in aeternum). The structure of her soul predisposes her “to protect” all that crosses her path, to discover in the strongest and most virile being a weak, defenseless child. If man is forever inclined to poeticize woman, if he remains an incurable romantic, woman is the only one to love man for what he is and as he is. A woman’s love is the most profound enigma, and man will never cease to be amazed at it. Helvetius defines masculine love very well: “to love is to need.” For which the feminine formula would be: “to love is to fulfill the need,” to go beyond and even to anticipate it. (pages 32-3)
An ancient liturgical text of dogmatic content (the Theotokion) defines the motherhood of the Virgin in the light of the paternity of God: “Without a father have you given birth to the Son, the One who was born without a mother before all ages.” The analogy is clearly described: the maternity of the Virgin presents itself as the human figure of the paternity of God. (34)
According to Maximus the Confessor, the mystic is the one in whom the birth of the Lord is manifested. And how telling it is that St Paul uses the image of motherhood when he wishes to express his spiritual fatherhood: “I must go through all the pain of childbirth.” (35)
The feminine operates on the level of an ontological structure: it is not a verb, it is being (esse), the creature’s womb. The Theotokos gives her entire being where the Logos comes to take His place; she carries Him and she reveals Him. The liturgy identifies the Virgin with the domain of the Wisdom of God. (40)
A completely new spirituality is asserting itself today, one that is searching for neither more nor less than a priestly vocation in conjugal love: The Nuptial Priesthood. (41)
Love alone bestows a spiritual meaning upon marriage, and justifies it by elevating it to perceive the countenance of the beloved in God, to the level of the one and only icon. (43)
It may be said that each faculty of the human spirit (intelligence, freedom, love, creation) reflects the image, which is essentially the complete human centered on the spiritual, whose distinctive characteristic it is to go beyond himself in order to cast himself into the infinity of God and to find there the alleviation of his nostalgia. Holiness is nothing but an unquenchable thirst, the intensity of the desire for God. St Gregory of Nyssa teaches that every limit contains in its essence a beyond, its own transcendence, and this is why the soul can rest only in the actual infinity of God.” (58)
Before the Fall, animal life was outside the spiritual being of man; opened and turned toward him, it was awaiting its proper spiritualization-humanization (Adam’s “naming” the beings and things). The fall of the sense faculties precipitated events, and animal life was added to the human being.” The Eastern Fathers specify that it is spiritual man—man in the image of God, the being supernaturally natural—who is primordial and normative, and that mere “natural” man was added to this ‘‘accidentally.” The animal-biological element seems alien to the true nature of man, owing to its being appropriated before its spiritualization, before man had achieved power and the mastery of the spiritual over the material. The error is the result of a precocious and untimely identification. Clement of Alexandria detects original sin in the fact that “the first man of our race did not bide his time, desired the favor of marriage before the proper hour, and fell into sin by not waiting for the time of God’s will. (59)
The anticontemplative tendency contrasts Eros to Agape” and confuses inwardness with being self-centered. For Gregory of Nyssa, however, Eros flowers into Agape and into love of neighbor: Eros is “the intensity of Agape.” “God is the Father of Agape and Eros.” The two are complementary: Eros, moved by the Spirit, goes out to meet divine Agape. (82)
In transcending the sensual, love gives an unsuspected depth to the flesh. Clearsighted and prophetic, it is above all revelation. It makes one view the soul of the beloved in terms of radiance, and attains the level of knowledge that belongs only to the one who loves. In Hebrew the verb yada means both to know and to marry; loving, therefore, indicates complete knowledge, ‘‘Adam knew Eve.” Behind all travesties, love contemplates the innocence that was at the beginning. Its miracle destroys remoteness, distance, solitude, and gives an inkling of what the mysterious unity of love can be, a heterogeneous identity of two subjects. (106)
In his book, The Jasmine of the Faithful of Love, the great Persian mystic Ruzbehan Bagli of Shiraz views lived human love as a necessary initiation into the love of God. This is not the monastic conversion of Eros, but its transfiguration. In every beloved there is an encounter with the one and only Beloved, just as in every divine name the totality of Names is found again, due to the sympathetic union (unio sympathetica). Beauty is seen as a manifestation of the sacred (Hierophany), an apparition of the divine (theophany), only if the love of God is lived in human love, the element to be transfigured and transmuted. Human love seems propaedeutic to divine love. (110)
The presence of God is no stranger to the attraction lovers feel for one another, and their encounter is never fortuitous. (111)
It is said that love is blind, and yet it makes one see. The revelation is transsubjective but not illusive, for it depends on the image of God. The iconographic concept acquaints and accustoms one to see the image of eternity. It is in this sense that St John Chrysostom affirms that “nuptial love is the strongest love’; like faith it is able to see what is hidden to others. (111-2)
However, this “birth into beauty” brings with it a purifying fire and imposes an asceticism. The banquet of love does not last. The face of the beloved is shown, only to disappear again. This is because it is not only given; it must also be created. (112)
The whole fascinating mystery of love lies in the spiritual conquest of the other, of the inaccessible. This makes of the beloved otherness the matter of the sacrament: the aim of love is that two become one (finis amoris ut duo unum fiant). A stranger becomes more intimate to me, more inward than my own soul. (115)
Clement of Alexandria has a far-reaching concept: “But who are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ in the midst of whom the Lord is? Does He not by the two mean husband and wife? He nonetheless propounds one condition: “The prize in the contest of men is shown by him who has trained himself by the discharge of the duties of marriage; by him, I say, who in the midst of his solicitude for his family shows himself inseparable from the love of God. (118)
The more the spouses are united in Christ the more their common cup, the measure of their life, is filled with the wine of Cana and becomes miraculous. (123)
The matter of the sacrament is not only a “visible sign,” but the natural substratum that is changed into the place where the energies of God are present. In the sacrament of marriage, the matter is the love of man and woman (125)
It is noteworthy that the Service contains no fear of the woman, no trace of suspicion or of contempt. The prayer for nuptial chastity is the opposite of every concept advancing “‘a remedy for concupiscence”; it asks for something entirely different, the miracle of the transfiguration of Eros. Carnal sin is not at all sin of the flesh, but sin of the spirit against the flesh, the profanation of the sacred and of the sanctity of the Incarnation. (155)
The inexhaustible richness of the texts invoked converges toward what is essential: the eucharistic nature of nuptial love. The Chaldean rite affirms this is a fortunate manner: “In his nuptial chamber, the spouse is like the tree of life in the Church. Its fruits are nourishing, its leaves bear healing power.” “The bride is like a cup of pure gold, overflowing with milk and sprinkled with drops of blood.” “May the Trinity abide forever in this nuptial chamber!” (157)
The Apostle Paul is deeply affected by the law of irrational resistance: “I do not understand what I do.” The conscience is hindered by the subconscious which never obeys direct orders or given and imposed imperatives. The imagination plays an important role here. It nourishes art, embodies an image in stone, color, sound. But art never creates a living object, as the myth of Galatea tells us. Likewise, abstract principles and a prescriptive morality are ineffective. Imagination and its Eros will always demand an incarnate image, a living icon, a saint. More than ever, an ascetic culture of the imagination is indispensable. A Dostoevsky, a Bernanos descend into the darkness, but their imagination is forever obedient to the image of Christ. An iconographic education acquaints one with true beauty, teaches the contemplation of mysteries. It is the soul that is the form of the body’s beauty, and in the beauty of the soul, it is the image of God that delights: us.” St John Climacus teaches the chastity of the imagination by describing the attitude of an ascetic who, on seeing the beauty of a naked woman, “thereupon glorified the Creator; and from that one look, he was moved to the love of God and to a fountain of tears. Such a person... has risen immortal before the general resurrection.” (172)
The present-day emancipations are superficial. They are made in view of an easy, conflict-free eroticism. The ease with which divorce is granted reduces marriage to very little, to a meaningless temporary mating or even to a business transaction or unavowed interests. (187)
Paul Claudel specifies the poetic function well: “You explain nothing, O poet, but through you all things become explainable.” It is the poetry of the Fathers of the Church that opens the aeonic depths and leads to the flame of things. The poetry of love triumphs over the day-to-day real, over. the ponderous seriousness of the theoreticians, over infernal ennui, over the prose of the unlivable “good sense.” It speaks the language of the “fools of God’”—the God-intoxicated—those who breathe the insufflations of the Spirit and who add fire to fire; likewise, the language of those who let their own death mature inside them like a fruit of the Resurrection, and finally of those whose human love leads to the love of God. “The love of God and the love of man are not two loves,” Maximus the Confessor states, “but two aspects of the same unifying love.” (191-2)
June 13, 2024
Evdokimov, boborule! Pentru că el scrie despre ortodoxia în care cred cu toată ființa mea și aș vrea să îl pot citi oricărui om adolescentin care nu înțelege credința din cauza formei sale instituționalizate, pentru că acest teolog are curajul să afirme cum anumite figuri bisericești (preoți, călugări) pot cauza un rău adânc prin ceea ce afirmă, privind (mai ales!), iubirea, căsătoria, erosul și rolul femeii. Morala e inoperantă chiar și în teologia morală.
May 23, 2023
"Ca să te lași iubit de altul trebuie să te lepezi deplin de tine însuți."
"Prin cuvântul: Dacă voiești să fii desăvârșit, vinde averea ta, călugării înțelegeau: vinde ceea ce ești. Aceasta este jertfirea totală a propriei ființe. După ce ai dat tot ce ai, dă tot ce ești."
"Arta marilor părinți duhovnicești ne învață: nu trebuie să fii ce ai, să-ți pui sinele in avuția ta, ci trebuie să ai ceea ce ești, să reduci toată averea la propria ființă. Să treci mereu de la a avea la a fi."
"Prin cuvântul: Dacă voiești să fii desăvârșit, vinde averea ta, călugării înțelegeau: vinde ceea ce ești. Aceasta este jertfirea totală a propriei ființe. După ce ai dat tot ce ai, dă tot ce ești."
"Arta marilor părinți duhovnicești ne învață: nu trebuie să fii ce ai, să-ți pui sinele in avuția ta, ci trebuie să ai ceea ce ești, să reduci toată averea la propria ființă. Să treci mereu de la a avea la a fi."
April 14, 2014
This is the best book i've read on marriage. I can understand that it frustrates some because it is written in a somewhat poetic/meandering style. One senses that it's either poorly translated or pooly edited or both. But that doesn't change the fact that its content is deep and it's more an exploration of the nature of or meaning of marriage rather than one of these banal rule books for love and marriage that are all too common. It's worth the work.
February 23, 2025
Hard to say that I’ll ever be truly done with this book. 🤍
Evdokimov’s philosophy is refreshing and seems balanced and separate from that of Jermome’s and Augustine and the traditional Catholic and Puritan views of marital union. His views and explanation of marriage is exquisite! Reminding of the calling to the Royal Priesthood of all believers whether monks or married, men or women.
In the chapter on anthropology, his views on salvation coming through women, and by writing so much about elevating women to high-esteem, he seems to (unnecessarily) downgrade the need for men and (more dangerously) the role and capabilities of men. I can see the latter being misunderstood and misused for planned/learned helplessness. Maybe Evdokimov didn’t mean it that way, and maybe I misunderstood. But, oh Lord, if I understand him correctly, it would be a travesty. We really don’t need more 1990s-style empowerment of women that must step down on men in order for “her” to shine. I already know of one person, a man, who quotes Evdokimov’s book as evidence that women are indeed better and smarter and more integrated in the symphony of creation compared with men who, in this person’s narrative, are naturally “stupid” creatures who follow their instincts and are incapable of serving or nurturing others without stepping outside of their “natural ways”………. I know he’s twisting Evdokimov’s words. It’s just sad to see an almost GREAT book be misused in that way due to bad language.
Evdokimov also jumps around so much and it is mental labor to keep up with him (especially in the anthropology chapters). Sometimes he leaves off from a line of thought too early for my liking. Were he alive I would be writing to him with more questions, but alas. He writes so beautifully and poetically, and sometimes in the poetry I worry that he sneaks his own opinions and prejudices… which is natural and human, but as in everything, we must read on, armed with discernment and softened to anecdotal experience as a real source of knowledge.
Beautiful long sentences translated from the original French. What an adventure! A book to redeem and change world views. 🤍
Evdokimov’s philosophy is refreshing and seems balanced and separate from that of Jermome’s and Augustine and the traditional Catholic and Puritan views of marital union. His views and explanation of marriage is exquisite! Reminding of the calling to the Royal Priesthood of all believers whether monks or married, men or women.
In the chapter on anthropology, his views on salvation coming through women, and by writing so much about elevating women to high-esteem, he seems to (unnecessarily) downgrade the need for men and (more dangerously) the role and capabilities of men. I can see the latter being misunderstood and misused for planned/learned helplessness. Maybe Evdokimov didn’t mean it that way, and maybe I misunderstood. But, oh Lord, if I understand him correctly, it would be a travesty. We really don’t need more 1990s-style empowerment of women that must step down on men in order for “her” to shine. I already know of one person, a man, who quotes Evdokimov’s book as evidence that women are indeed better and smarter and more integrated in the symphony of creation compared with men who, in this person’s narrative, are naturally “stupid” creatures who follow their instincts and are incapable of serving or nurturing others without stepping outside of their “natural ways”………. I know he’s twisting Evdokimov’s words. It’s just sad to see an almost GREAT book be misused in that way due to bad language.
Evdokimov also jumps around so much and it is mental labor to keep up with him (especially in the anthropology chapters). Sometimes he leaves off from a line of thought too early for my liking. Were he alive I would be writing to him with more questions, but alas. He writes so beautifully and poetically, and sometimes in the poetry I worry that he sneaks his own opinions and prejudices… which is natural and human, but as in everything, we must read on, armed with discernment and softened to anecdotal experience as a real source of knowledge.
Beautiful long sentences translated from the original French. What an adventure! A book to redeem and change world views. 🤍
December 14, 2015
The Sacrament of Love by Paul Evdokimov. Publisher: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press (October 25, 2011). Paperback, 192 pages
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, Audible Audio Edition. Publisher: Thomas Nelson, Inc. Release date: January 28, 2005.
Of these two “owner’s manuals for love and marriage,” The Four Loves is the most practical and accessible. Lewis sees four types of human love: 1) Storge (Gk: στοργή), the bonds of parent/child, bloodline, and tribe. 2) Philia (Gk: φιλία), the rare love between true friends with shared interests and personal compatibility. 3) Eros (Gk: ἔρως), a bond at once romantic and erotic, but more than raw sexuality. However, Lewis finds these three loves to be incomplete, each containing the seed of its own undoing:
"We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred.”
The “natural loves” can all fail us if they remain untransformed by the fourth love, Agape (Gk: ἀγάπη), the love that endures and forgives regardless of changing circumstances, a love ever expanding and deepening. Lewis sees agape as a specifically Christian virtue, being exemplified by the unconditional love of God.
“But Divine Gift-love in the man enables him to love what is not naturally lovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior and the sneering.”
Evdokimov’s The Sacrament of Love take the theme of transformation-through-agape to an altogether deeper level. He produces a challenging and deep examination of the synthesis of Eros and Agape and their role in the deification of man and woman. Evdokimov demonstrates how the love of Christ for His Church illumines and conflates the vocations of both the monastic and the married. His vision of Christianity’s radical equality (and necessity) of the sexes within creation and the God-given root of proper gender roles forms the basis for a transformative “Nuptial Priesthood.”
"The time has come to assert the fullness of matrimony, its state of grace … The true monk will rejoice in this, for he, more than anyone else, is able to discern the real value of marriage. Its path is narrow, perhaps the most narrow of all, since there are two that walk upon it." (70)
How beautiful are these visions of man, woman, and God together. How needful it is for the world to see these glories lived out within the apostolic Christian community.
Paul Evdokimov (1901-1970) was a professor of Orthodox theology Orthodox at the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was a British writer, Christian apologist, and academic who held positions at both Oxford and Cambridge. He is best known for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia, and his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, Audible Audio Edition. Publisher: Thomas Nelson, Inc. Release date: January 28, 2005.
Of these two “owner’s manuals for love and marriage,” The Four Loves is the most practical and accessible. Lewis sees four types of human love: 1) Storge (Gk: στοργή), the bonds of parent/child, bloodline, and tribe. 2) Philia (Gk: φιλία), the rare love between true friends with shared interests and personal compatibility. 3) Eros (Gk: ἔρως), a bond at once romantic and erotic, but more than raw sexuality. However, Lewis finds these three loves to be incomplete, each containing the seed of its own undoing:
"We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred.”
The “natural loves” can all fail us if they remain untransformed by the fourth love, Agape (Gk: ἀγάπη), the love that endures and forgives regardless of changing circumstances, a love ever expanding and deepening. Lewis sees agape as a specifically Christian virtue, being exemplified by the unconditional love of God.
“But Divine Gift-love in the man enables him to love what is not naturally lovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior and the sneering.”
Evdokimov’s The Sacrament of Love take the theme of transformation-through-agape to an altogether deeper level. He produces a challenging and deep examination of the synthesis of Eros and Agape and their role in the deification of man and woman. Evdokimov demonstrates how the love of Christ for His Church illumines and conflates the vocations of both the monastic and the married. His vision of Christianity’s radical equality (and necessity) of the sexes within creation and the God-given root of proper gender roles forms the basis for a transformative “Nuptial Priesthood.”
"The time has come to assert the fullness of matrimony, its state of grace … The true monk will rejoice in this, for he, more than anyone else, is able to discern the real value of marriage. Its path is narrow, perhaps the most narrow of all, since there are two that walk upon it." (70)
How beautiful are these visions of man, woman, and God together. How needful it is for the world to see these glories lived out within the apostolic Christian community.
Paul Evdokimov (1901-1970) was a professor of Orthodox theology Orthodox at the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was a British writer, Christian apologist, and academic who held positions at both Oxford and Cambridge. He is best known for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia, and his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.
December 29, 2015
In The Sacrament of Love (this title was created by St John Chrysostom, one of the few Church Fathers whose pastoral concerns and scriptural sense led to a valuation of human love), Paul Evdokimov bases his thesis on the two accounts of the creation of man and woman in Genesis—accounts that Christ draws together in order to show simultaneously in the couple unity and otherness. To borrow from a profound Jewish exegesis, God created the human {ha adarri) male and female. Taking not a rib, but a half of this reality still not fully differentiated, He places the woman facing the man. This is the discovery of another person who is nonetheless consubstantial to me ("bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”). The theological correspondences are obvious, and Evdokimov has no trouble bringing them to light: the mystery of the Trinity, the inaccessible God who makes Himself accessible. In its original fullness, human love reflects the Communion of the Trinity; the otherness of God is the foundation for the otherness of the other, and His grace is the basis for the encounter.
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May 15, 2021Evdokimov’s The Sacrament of Love takes the theme of transformation-through-agape to an altogether deeper level. He produces a challenging and deep examination of the synthesis of Eros and Agape and their role in the deification of man and woman. Evdokimov demonstrates how the
love of Christ for His Church illumines and conflates the vocations of both the monastic and the married. His vision of Christianity’s radical equality (and necessity) of the sexes within creation and the God-given root of proper gender roles forms the basis for a transformative “Nuptial
Priesthood.”
"The time has come to assert the fullness of matrimony, its state of grace…The true monk will rejoice in this, for he, more than anyone else, is able to discern the real value of marriage. Its
path is narrow, perhaps the most narrow of all, since there are two that walk upon it " (p. 70)
love of Christ for His Church illumines and conflates the vocations of both the monastic and the married. His vision of Christianity’s radical equality (and necessity) of the sexes within creation and the God-given root of proper gender roles forms the basis for a transformative “Nuptial
Priesthood.”
"The time has come to assert the fullness of matrimony, its state of grace…The true monk will rejoice in this, for he, more than anyone else, is able to discern the real value of marriage. Its
path is narrow, perhaps the most narrow of all, since there are two that walk upon it " (p. 70)
October 18, 2021
Reading this book has increased my knowledge greatly of the ancient church and Byzantine church. It is an excellent description of marriage.
I've done this more than once; while discussing a couple that has separated or divorced, I have , pretty thoughtlessly, said something to the effect of "at least they didn't have children". The friend that recommended this book replied to this statement, "That doesn't really matter." Now, I understand why he said this. As a Christian, I often think of marriage largely in terms of procreation. This book points me to the understanding that the holiness in marriage does not largely lie in children produced. This book makes a lot of marriage, rightly so, and restores it to the calling that it is and how it is seen in the church.
I've done this more than once; while discussing a couple that has separated or divorced, I have , pretty thoughtlessly, said something to the effect of "at least they didn't have children". The friend that recommended this book replied to this statement, "That doesn't really matter." Now, I understand why he said this. As a Christian, I often think of marriage largely in terms of procreation. This book points me to the understanding that the holiness in marriage does not largely lie in children produced. This book makes a lot of marriage, rightly so, and restores it to the calling that it is and how it is seen in the church.
March 17, 2021
I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars.
May 18, 2021
The book provides a scholarly treatise on the Orthodox Christian view of marriage and sexuality.
This is a master's thesis rather than a book for the lay reader, which I found extremely disappointing. It is heavily footnoted and contains a lot of historical and scriptural analysis. If you are attending Orthodox seminary and need to write a paper on marriage and the Orthodox Church, this book would make a good source. But it offers little for the layman.
If you are an ordinary Orthodox Christian looking for some guidance on the topics of love, sex, and marriage, I would suggest Love, Sexuality, And The Sacrament Of Marriage, and if you are an ordinary Orthodox Christian wanting to learn more about the Orthodox Church's position on marriage as well as the history of marriage within the Orthodox faith, I would suggest Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective.
This is a master's thesis rather than a book for the lay reader, which I found extremely disappointing. It is heavily footnoted and contains a lot of historical and scriptural analysis. If you are attending Orthodox seminary and need to write a paper on marriage and the Orthodox Church, this book would make a good source. But it offers little for the layman.
If you are an ordinary Orthodox Christian looking for some guidance on the topics of love, sex, and marriage, I would suggest Love, Sexuality, And The Sacrament Of Marriage, and if you are an ordinary Orthodox Christian wanting to learn more about the Orthodox Church's position on marriage as well as the history of marriage within the Orthodox faith, I would suggest Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective.
August 5, 2008
This book had some good parts but was disappointing overall. It was originally a French language book and I don't know if the translation was poor or if the author simply has a very unclear way of writing.
I appreciated his discussion in the beginning of woman, and there were moments later in the book when he discussed contraception and other things that were very clear and helpful. I would not recommend this book in its current incarnation. I am enjoying "Marriage As a Path to Holiness" more, though it is admittedly a less theologically rich book. It is at least a bit better written. I look forward to someday reading the marriage book of John Meyendorff for a hopefully better written reflection on marriage in Orthodox spirituality.
I appreciated his discussion in the beginning of woman, and there were moments later in the book when he discussed contraception and other things that were very clear and helpful. I would not recommend this book in its current incarnation. I am enjoying "Marriage As a Path to Holiness" more, though it is admittedly a less theologically rich book. It is at least a bit better written. I look forward to someday reading the marriage book of John Meyendorff for a hopefully better written reflection on marriage in Orthodox spirituality.
December 25, 2016
Unusually fascinating!. What a lovely title and book cover for starters.
In it's vagrant ramblings it stumbles upon some new light.
It's strongest point is also it's weakest in that- although generally orthodox, it is breaking some new ground, via a kind of ressourcement, and takes in a lot of Christian life, often overreaching.
This could be used in ecumenical work and kudos to Evdokimov for sharing a nuanced take on Love and Marriage in Christianity.
Worth reading alongside Sherrard, Rahner, T Mackin SJ, Knieps Port-Le- Roi, Yannaras, V.C. Samuel, Fr John Behr, JP2, Fabrice Hadjadj, J Meyendorff, William Basil Zion, Dr V Guroian and maybe even crazy old Vladimir Moss' Theology of Eros', or the work of the'Liberal Christian' Adrian Thatcher on 'Postmodern Christian Marriage'.
In it's vagrant ramblings it stumbles upon some new light.
It's strongest point is also it's weakest in that- although generally orthodox, it is breaking some new ground, via a kind of ressourcement, and takes in a lot of Christian life, often overreaching.
This could be used in ecumenical work and kudos to Evdokimov for sharing a nuanced take on Love and Marriage in Christianity.
Worth reading alongside Sherrard, Rahner, T Mackin SJ, Knieps Port-Le- Roi, Yannaras, V.C. Samuel, Fr John Behr, JP2, Fabrice Hadjadj, J Meyendorff, William Basil Zion, Dr V Guroian and maybe even crazy old Vladimir Moss' Theology of Eros', or the work of the'Liberal Christian' Adrian Thatcher on 'Postmodern Christian Marriage'.
April 3, 2013
The single best volume on the sacrament of marriage in English. There are parts of this book that are lyrical and poetical in nature, and thus beautiful and deeply affecting.
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